Appropriate interpretation is one major aspect in literary study. However, it has beenrnobserved that there exists a problem of interpretation. in the field of-literature. This problemrnhas led and is leading people who are engaged in literary study to wrong perception ofrnreality which results in social practices that are misleading. This is a critical problem andrnrequires careful attention from scholars in the field .In this connection, literature isrnbasically related to ideology which directly or indirectly controls discourses. Literaryrndiscourses are also expressions of ideology. This point implies that no work of literature isrndevoid of ideological content. For this reason, in any literary analysis, the inclusion ofrnideological structure is necessary. To be more specific, African literary texts in general andrnpolitical novels in particular are in one way or another related to ideology .rn. " Concomitantly, the African tradition of thought and African literary tradition are two basicrncategories which are intimately or closely related to the long African history. The Africanrntradition of thought has got expression through its oral tradition which later developed intornwritten literature. In this connection, it may be noted that modern African literature hasrnsprung from its own history which is characterized by domination. This also implies thatrnAfrican literature reflects the African experience in the course of domination which rangesrnfrom the slave-trade to the post-colonial era. The idea of domination is linked to politics,rnideology and power because domination is impossible without political power. In thisrnregard, most African authors are preoccupied with portraying the colonial and post-colonialrnexperience of Africa through their works.All of the points indicated above clearly showrn. " that there is a link among African history, African politics, African ideology, Africanrndomination and African literary texts. This link presupposes a closer examination ofrnideology through which all forms of control are carried out.In addition, the study ofrnideology in the African context is very limited. Taking these points into account, thisrnresearch sets out to deal with problems of interpretation taking ideological analysis as itsrnreference point.For this purpose,this study has evolved an integrated framework ofrnideology consisting' of three major paradigms.vis.iauthorial.aesthetic and' dominantrnideologies. This framework has been applied to the interpretation of six selected EastrnAfrican Anglophone novels:Nuruddin Farah's first trilogy,Ngugi's Petals ofrnBlood,Mwangi's Kill Me Quick and Serumaga's Return to the Shadows.rnThis thesis contains seven chapters. The first chapter deals with the rationale thatrnnecesitates ideological study in literary texts in line with the background of African literaryrntradition. The second chapter is mainly concerned with critical views on many issues inrnrelation to African literature .Chapter three primarily focuses on reorganizing theories ofrn. ideology to form an integrated model of ideology . In addition, this section attempts tornshow how ideological universals can be contextualized based on African ideology andrnhistorical experience. Chapters four to six elucidate the nature of ideology in each selectedrnnovel based on ideological structures that are considered as a paradigm for analyzingrnAfrican literary texts .Chapter seven forwards the similarities and differences among thernselected novels in terms of their ideological structure. Finally, chapter eight winds thernthesis up by providing relevant concluding remarks, findings and recommendations.Thernmajor findings of this study are:global theories of ideological interpretation of literary textsrnneed African contextualization;there has to be meaning relationships among the differentrninterpretations of the same text;and it is possible to make a distinction between the impliedrnauthor and the real author.rn.